Special Powers Act

Special Powers Act, officially the Civil Authorities (Special Powers) Act, a wide‐ranging emergency law of the Northern Ireland Parliament (Apr. 1922). It replaced Westminster's Restoration of Order in Ireland Act (1920), repealed as part of the Anglo‐Irish treaty. Like similar legislation in the Irish Free State (see public safety acts; offences against the state act), it was a draconian response to civil war, but it was renewed annually long after the disorder had ended, and made permanent in 1933. It gave remarkably wide powers of arrest and detention to the Royal Ulster Constabulary as agents of the minister for home affairs, and enabled the minister to proscribe organizations and ban or reroute parades. Until the late 1960s the act was used almost exclusively against Catholics, who regarded it as a major symbol of repression. It proved unsusceptible to any legal challenge. It was the legal basis for internment in 1971, but was repealed in 1973 and replaced by Westminster legislation, the NI Emergency Provisions Act (1973) and the Prevention of Terrorism Act (1974).

A. C. Hepburn